From: "Bob Malecki" <malecki-AT-mail.bip.net>
Subject: M-TH: Re Kosovo
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 18:18:28 +0100


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Dave replies on Kosovo!
>
>Reply to Bob on Kosovo.
>
>Bob writes:
>> We would certainly in Kosovo go
>> into a military defense with workers and their organizations against
>> chauvinist Serb pogroms directed at them. But I allso said that we would
>not
>> give one bit of political support to the Albanian bourgeois nationalists
>who
>> are asking for NATO to intervene on their side..
>
>OK but how does this differ from either Hugh's position or mine. Neither of
>us gives any political or military support to the Albanian bourgeois
>nationalists. You on the other hand, by denying that it is national
>oppression that motivates these pogroms, cannot convince the workers
>organisations that you would bloc with, that you are on their side. If you
>go into Kosovo with arms to bloc with workers, the first thing they will
>ask you is  - are you for autonomy? You will say no and get shot. On the
>other hand, we will say yes, of course, but only if we workers are in
>control and we do not allow the pro-imperialists to run the show. We may
>still get shot, but the chances are it will be by those who are aligned to
>the bosses. So, how do you break workers from their bosses without at first
>declaring support for their struggle for independence?  To do anything else
>is to impose an ultimatum - renounce your nationalism it is false and fight
>with us for socialism now - with the obvious results.
I am not denying that "Nationalism" is involved in the pogroms. But I do say
that all sides in this conflict would use pogroms against the other peoples
occupying the same bit of territory if they got the military clout. All
sides are looking for to be a frontman for various different imperialist 
interests.. So why all the cheerleading from Hugh for the Albanians and
earlier the Bosnian Muslims. In fact Hugh capitulates to one particular sort
of nationalism in these struggles..The ICL position is quite clear in saying
their is no solution to the national question here just becuse we have a 
situation of inter-penetrating peoples who occupy the same bit of territory..
Bob writes...
>> Communists like the ICL took the position of revolutionary defeatism on
>all
>> sides in this war while opposing all outside intervention...At best Hugh
>is
>> tailing Bosnian Muuslim nationalism and now Albanian nationalism (albeit
>> with a fake left "Trotskyist" cover) in order to ride on the wave of
>> reactionary popular front politics!
Dave replies..
>My position is NOT the same as Hugh's on Bosnia. But to say that Hugh is
>tailing Albanian pro-imperialism is to admit that your politics are
>irrelevant to the situation. If you think that 'intervening' in Kosovo with
>your socialist ultimatum, will have any other effect than to drive workers
>further into the arms of the pro-imperialists, you are dreaming. To
>recognise a national oppression does not mean to 'tail' the bourgeois
>leadership. It means to actually fight it on the ground, as opposed to
>standing on the sidelines and shouting 'socialism'. If you are saying that
>because the pro-imperialists dominate the national movement it is hopeless
>to win workers to socialism, then there will be few situations in which
>communists can intervene, because the working class will never be ready for
>your programme. So you can then join all the other lefts who say the
>working class was not ready for us, or rather, the working class was
>mislead by the tailers. But this is a passive tailing of the bourgeoisie
>because its handing the bosses a victory on a plate without putting up a
>fight. The point is that you have to intervene, in order to win over the
>working class to a socialist programme.
This is like saying that Lenin's position on imperialist war was irrevelant
in August 1914. Certainly a lot of workers would have shot the Bolsheviks in
the Nationalist-patriotic hysteria with the outbreak of war, but Lenin's 
Bolshevik's saw where this war was leadind and was laying the groundwork for
the coming October Revolution in recruiting the vanguard of the proletariat
to his position. What you say here is that communist opposition must be
subordinated to the backwardness of the class under its bourgeois
nationalist (former Stalinist) leadership in order to get rich quick..
Your position Dave is the classical opportunist position of tailing the
rearguard instead of building the Vanguard...
Bob writes..
>
>> He even goes futher and shouts his support to General Galteri in
>> Argentina--The Irish Question and the middle east to strengthen his
>> arguement. In these three cases it is under the guise of the
>> anti-imperialist United Front  that Hugh and others liquidate the need
>for a
>> communist opposition to these Nationalists and anti-imperialist fakers.
>In
>> fact supporting Galteri in the war with Britain was both the Morenoite
>and
>> LCMCRI's Social Democratic betrayal of August 1914 where they backed
>their
>> own Bourgeoisie in Argentina including the bloody military who has always
>> drowned the Argentinean proletariat in blood!
Dave replies..
>>
>Trotsky said defend Abbysinia from Italy despite the Negus (Emperor).
>Defend Brazil from the US despite the generals. Why not Argentina, Iraq,
>Northern Ireland? These are colonies or semi-colonies dominated by
>imperialism. The AIUF does not mean political support or military
>subordination to the national bourgeoisie. That's a long-time Spartacist
>sectarian position which avoids you getting your hands dirty in a bloody
>anti-imperialist war. August 1914 saw the communist movement actually
>voting for war credits in an inter-imperialist war. Are you saying that
>Argentina, Iraq and Northern Ireland are imperialists countries? If so,
>where do they get their super-profits from?
Sure Dave and pigs fly! In the first place we are talking about three
different areas of the world...Argentina and the fake war over some islands
that nobody even cared about. Ireland and the national question plus British
occupation of Ireland and third the middle east..Trying to apply Trotsky's
position on "Abbysinia and Italy" to these events including what is going on
in the former Yugoslavia is like threading a camel through the eye of a
needle! 
Bob writes...
>> Hugh's latest enthusiasim on this list both over Iraq and now Albania
>where
>> his organization went so far as saying that Sadaam's Iraq is in the
>> forefront of the anti-imperialist struggle and now his cheerleading of
>> Albanian nationalism under the cover of the legitimate support of the
>> national question is hardly even the Leninist position in the classical
>> sense! In fact Lenin saw the national question as a NEGATIVE question and
>> worked out tactics in order to move things towards a future proletarian
>> solution to the problem. Trotsky too witryh his permanent revolution was
>> into this also. But Hugh is into the politics of the COMINTERN of Stalin
>in
>> word with his utter capitulkation to these mobilizations and their
>political
>> content which hardly is progressive and leading forward--but in fact is
>> being used by the ex-Stalinists to go backwards and create ruling classes
>in
>> this part of the world!
>> So what we have here is both Hugh and Dave trying to use the correct
>> classical position on the national question that Trotsky and Lenin had
>and
>> applying it to the WRONG situation and taking the working class not
>> forward--but BACKWARD!!!!!
Dave replies...
>
>Hugh is more than capable of defending himself. You'r right in words, the
>national question is a class question, thats why we have fight on its
>territory, rather than keep our hands clean by taking ultra-left purist
>positions.  That's exactly why Lenin granted the right of nations to
>self-determination inside the SU. That's why Trotsky called for an
>independent socialist republic of the Ukraine. Because in doing so, workers
>in the oppressor countries must declare their solidarity with workers in
>the oppressed countries to fight against national oppression and to win
>them over to socialism and to fight the plans for restoration. So its not a
>question of moving the national question along towards a "future
>proletarian solution" , the National question is a class question from the
>start. Without a  proletarian policy of supporting unconditionally the
>right to self-determination, there will be no "future proletarian
>solution", but rather a bourgeois, reactionary, restorationist class one.
Sure the national question is a class question and sure Lenin had tactics
connected to this question. But trying to paste these tactics onto
situations where it does not apply can not help communists one bit, nor the
working class.. There is nothing "purest" about the ICL position on
inter-penetrating peoples. It is the way out of a dead end which both Hugh
and yourself deny by trying to tail all kinds of movements
that arise on the horizen and then pasting some "national question" retoric
on it ..
Bob writes...
>
>> In fact Hugh is turning his back and supporting one side against the
>other
>> here. That is the problem. And Dave's banal left rhetoric of a federation
>in
>> a future republic maks no sense unless one understands that we do not get
>> their by supporting struggles which de facto mean one side getting the
>> upperhand and reversing the forms of oppression. This is what Hugh does
>> concretely with his one sided support to first the Bosnians and now the
>> Albanians.
Dave replies..
>
>It does not follow that the Albanians will reverse the discrimation, unless
>the workers are totally coopted by the pro-imperialist leadership. Are we
>saying that this is already the case?  Or that it must inevitably happen?
>No. It is not totally the case, though the absence of a revolutionary
>movement has already meant that the bosses have almost no opposition to
>their pro-imperialist plans. It will happen, inevitably, only if this
>situation is allowed to remain. The bosses pro-US plans will involve the
>workers in reverse discrimination and a new Balkan war that may spread
>accross the whole of south-East Europe. They only way to stop this is to
>unite Albanian workers with Serb workers, and the international working
>class,  against their respective bosses. This cannot happen unless Serbian
>workers defend the right of Kosovo workers to autonomy, win their
>confidence by fighting alongside them against Serbian repression. Only on
>this basis can a cross-national class alliance develop capable of defeating
>both reactionary national leaderships. So far from a popular front, this
>must be a genuine international workers unite front against national
>oppression and its ultimate cause imperialism.
Bob replies..
Why is it just the Serbian workers that have to realize that people have 
rights? The point being that all the groups of people's occupying the same
bit of territory have rights also. This is why there is no national solution
to the question in Yugoslavia.
and as I said earlier..
>
>> Sure Dave! Lets see you get the above off the ground. But the main slogan
>of
>> the Albanian nationalists is getting just NATO to solve there problems.
>Just
>> as the Croats want the Germans to solve there problems. Just as the Serbs
>> want the Russian capitalist state to solve there problems, just as the
>> Bosnian Muslims want the Allyotohahs to solve their problems.
In fact by taking sides in these conflicts it is both Hugh and yourself that
pit one worker against another. you posed a loaded question to me in the 
beginning of this letter saying the Spartacists would get "shot" with their
line if they were to seriously argue it in Kosovo. Try your line in serbia
and see what happens pal! The only serious line that could appeal to the 
workers on all sides in this conflict is the line of the ICL which gives a
solution to the problem. You and Hugh aggrevate the national question by 
taking one side against the other in this conflict..
>>
>Bob's radicalism really masks a deep pessimism about the Spartacists
>inability to intervene to any effect in any situation.  He treats history
>as a qualitative piece of shit which is miraculously going to be changed
>into a little piece of heaven on earth,  by some external moral force
>acting upon workers.  Its not fate that says that every little tin-pot
>nationalist dictator or warlord will win. We have to intervene in the shit
>to stop these reactionaries from sucking the workers into new wars and
>murder camps. You can't do that by pulling out of the game because there
>are too many players who interpenetrate and break all the rules. This
>interpenetration is the legacy of 1000's of years of oppression. Bosnia was
>the pits because of mutual cleansing. But Kosovo has not yet seen this
>happen. It will happen unless we convince Serbian workers to stop
>oppressing Albanian workers in Kosovo.
"Pulling out of the game"? Well, Dave the point is that Hugh's and your line
in no way shows a way out of the situation that has come up with the
destruction of the former Yugoslavia. And once again I repeat..
>
>> Dave is fighting for "democracy". We Communists fight against all forms
>of
>> nationalist oppression--but we do this without giving one bit of
>political
>> support to any of the contending nationalists in the former
>Yugoslavia..And
>> the problem with at least Dave and Hugh's position is that they have
>taken
>> sides and support one of the contending bourgeoisies against the other in
>> this part of the world albeit with a left face and in the name of
>> "Trotskyism"...
>
>The irony is here that Hugh and I are clearly NOT supporting any
>bourgeoisie, in fact the opposite,  by trying to split workers away from
>their pro-imperialist bosses. On the other hand, Bob's Spartacist position,
>IS defending the Kosovo Albanian pro-imperialists by default,  because
>there is no way that the Spartacists can intervene on the side of the
>oppressed Kosovo workers without being shot out of hand as foreign
>oppressors dressed up as international communists. You can do all sorts of
>things in the name of "trotskyism", including using the old man's name in
>vain as you call from the side-lines.
Bullshit Dave! The problem with your line is that you are the left tail of
the bourgeoisie. And in fact have no solution to the problems confronting
workers in the former Yugoslavia. And, talking about being "shot" well the
closest thing to this was in fact the chairman of the Swedish CP (a
feminist)who also had the same line in the war has Hugh and the thanks she
got was almost getting stoned to death in Tuzla by Hugh's Oh so progressive
Bosnian Muslims..But even more interesting is the fact the this kind of
stuff comes up throughout you entire reply to me. What you are really saying
is that the LCmcri fear telling the truth to the workuing class even if this
truth is bitter..Lenin and his Bolsheviks certainly had to stand up to
patriotic and nationalist hysteria and the beating of imperialist war drums.
But both Hugh and your line smell of the Social Democratic traitors who in
different countries voted for their *own* bougeoisie's and their *own*
workers in fear of telling the truth to workers..The ICL  do not fear
fighting not only for what they believe to be the truth but like Lenin and
Luxemburg and the Bolshevik tradition go against the stream of bourgeois 
nationalism in all its forms especially when like in Yugoslavia today the
"national question" is being used by the ex-Stalinists and their left tails
in order to carve out a piece of sovereignty at the expense of other peoples
occupying the same bit of territory..
Now Dave and the LCMCRI, just as the Morenoites can call this "abstention",
"sectarian", and all of the rest of the dribble. Ending up with the Sparts
might get shot in Kosovo. Naturally leaving aside the cowardly political 
pretensions this kind of stuff has one could add that Dave and Hugh's
cheerleading would also get them shot in many other parts of the former
Yugoslavia. Which makes this kind of arguement moot! Except it is from
Dave's side used as a hammer to beat his anti-Spartacist drum and show his
political cowardness in deed which means taking the political line of
putting pressure on the nationalists and chauvinism and turning it into
something positive. Even this by the way is dragging Lenin through the mud
and putting the national question in the wrong light. In fact Lenin saw the
national question as a NEGATIVE question whereas Huhg and Dave have turned
it into a bible thumping campaign which only can lead to new defeats and new
disasters for poor and working class people..
Warm Regards
Bob Malecki

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